Cecilia de Montbegon, Lady of Kirkland

Hornby Castle, near Lancaster, Lancashire, UK, 25 May, 2008

The base of the central, octagonal keep (with the flag) is thought to date from 1115, when Roger de Montbegon built a stone replacement for the 11th Century motte and bailey of Castle Stede ~1km away. By 1228 it was owned by Hubert de Burgh, the (subsequently disgraced) Earl of Kent and Chief Justiciar to the King, then passed to the Earl of Dorset by ~1420. The current keep is primarily the result of restoration/additional building in ~1512 for Sir Edward Stanley, Lord Monteagle, with the remaining complex built over the foundations of the mediaeval fortress.

The castle remained functional (and Royalist; James I visited in 1617) until the English Civil War, in which it was captured in 1643 by Parliamentary forces led by Colonel Ralph Assheton. Orders that the castle be destroyed or rendered unusable were not fulfilled, so Prince Rupert was able to use it in 1644. The Duke of Hamilton occupied the castle in 1648, and this time all but the keep was demolished.

Colonel Francis Charteris bought the castle in 1713 and, after the Scottish incursion of 1745 (during which Charteris fled to Lancaster), rebuilt this, the south-western end, as a Georgian manor house alongside the keep, a hall and a further tower in a boundary wall enclosing a tapering courtyard. That arrangement is the underlying skeleton of the current layout and Victorian 'Domestic Gothic' appearence, the results of extensive remodelling/additions for Pudsey Dawson by Sharpe & Paley between 1849 and 1852, altered and supplemented for the Foster family by Paley & Austin in 1881 and 1889-91. Somehow the south-west front looks too contrived; I prefer the view from other angles and greater distance.

The castle is now Grade I Listed but still in use as a private residence (or residences – I understand it comprises a number of standalone apartments) and is only open to the public on specific occasions, 2-3 times each year.